TECHMANN rackets: Thin beam, midsize 12+oz heaven (PICS)

...No not really heaven but still, a highly playable combination of heavy and headlight balance in braided graphite, boron and kevlar flavours (or so they claimed).

TECHMANN was a very short-lived Aussie brand of the late 80s whose brand presence was built on a bunch of local coaching pros who endorsed the rackets and fronted their marketing campaign. Heck, with the money they saved on using an ATP pro they still spent big - I recall them running local 30-second TV ads ad-nauseum during Wimbledon '89.

I'm guessing the rackets were Taiwanese-made sticks but they don't have the hallmarks or DNA of Kennex-made rackets so I think they came out of a different OEM manufacturer. I have also not seen the frames rebadged under any of the other more established brands. Perhaps you may have seen them under obscure European sports/retail brands? Inter Sports? Ascot? Marathon? etc.

Plain matte cosmetics. A very buttery feel with sufficient plow-through and mass on each of the pictured models. 345-355gms strung. Thin beamed sillhouettes just knife through the air. Design-wise they pre-date the widebody craze despite being around at the same time.

This same system was used by rackets of the Japanese Mall (Maruman) company and the CS4400 and Graphite 4200 do look very similar to Mall's EX-11 and 731 models.

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I would not be surprised if the molds were used on generic Japanese brands and Japanese SMUs. I can see the frames emblazoned with all the typical "Japlish" performance decals - Super Terrific Maruman Velocity Zone, Ultra Power Zen System, Mugen Weight Vector etc